Tuesday 27 May 2014

The Lost Tribe's Girl

couldn't move. They were everywhere, whirling all around me.  They had huge glaring eyes that stared at me, trying to blind me. ‘Almost as big as four caimans’ I thought. Some seemed asleep though. Their eyes were still open but no light coming from them. I shivered looking at them. It was as though they had died right there and no one had even noticed.
Cars Sarah called them. “C-A-R-S” she said. I tried to mouth the word but I was too distracted by the ferocious sounds they made. It was like no creature I had ever heard. Each one was different. From leafy colours to the colours of blue morpho butterflies. Sarah opened a door of one of these cars for me and beckoned me to get in. I sat down, hugging my knees as I waited for her. She got in on the other side and gave me some candy. She had given me some back at home too when I had been scared. They calmed me down then too.
Lonesome trees stood on lonesome streets. Brown filled the village. There were brown blocks everywhere, encapsulating us. Sarah said these were their houses. How could they live in them? There was no wood or leaves. And they are so tall, which worried me. I like my hammock only a few feet off the ground. I wondered how high off the ground they must be if I could not see the top of the houses.
Only a few hours ago I had been able to see the rooftops. The thing we travelled in was terrifying. Sarah called it safe but I still screamed when I looked out of the little window. She had said I was safe when I had found her too. Lifting off was quite a sight. Once my ears stopped hurting and my tummy stopped feeling like it was twirling round with the plane, I had become transfixed by what was outside. The jungle’s treetops were far below us. Macaws nested with their young on the highest of those branches; a sight usually exclusive to only the most daring climbers. Then out of the layers upon layers of verdant mass, the long vein of the forest, I had grown to know well, showed itself. I had been collecting water from it for my family when the danger had come. I had ridden through its temperaments to the serene, azure beds at the heart of the Amazon.
We got out of the car and, holding my hand, she took me to a place filled with bright clothes, much like the ones I saw Sarah wearing that day I ran out of the clearing. She bought me some clothes like the other children here wore. I had been wearing rags when I met Sarah but she gave me borrowed clothes when we had got to the airport. We passed more and more people with bags full of strange entities along the street. Hunched over a shop window was a lady looking inside with things hanging from her neck that glistened in the light. There were no shells or bones but delicate rosy and cerulean balls that she wound round her fingers. Catching my eye Sarah looked at the burn marks on my arms and rushed us into the shop where there were even more objects connected with silver string. Soon we left with my wrist dazzling.
While we carried on down the hard black path sweet smells erupted from around a corner where Sarah said situated a chocolatier, whatever that meant. I missed the animals. There were none except a few grey birds blending into the background. There probably weren't any left at my home now either.
Finally we made it to the last building. Sarah said there were more children my age inside and a nice lady who would look after me. It was going to be my new home. One that couldn't burn.

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